


sinnerman

by jackswest



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Divorce, Eventual Relationships, M/M, Sexual Content
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-11-10
Updated: 2013-11-10
Packaged: 2018-01-01 01:49:26
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,243
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1038904
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jackswest/pseuds/jackswest
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Leonard McCoy has been happily married to Jocelyn for ten years. Well... they've been <i>mostly</i> happy. Enter Jim Kirk, a guy with a ridiculous amount of money left over from his father's death who decides to buy a house in small town Georgia. Leonard never intended to cheat, but he did. Jim never intended to begin an affair with a married man, but he did.</p>
            </blockquote>





	sinnerman

“Did you hear about the new guy who just moved here yet, Len?”

Jocelyn spoke from her dresser where she was removing the last vestiges of the day’s makeup. Leonard glanced up briefly from the medical journals he was studying.

“No. Who is he?” The small town mentality that seemed to affect so many in Georgia was no different in town name. Everyone knew _everyone_. Leonard didn’t like to concern himself with the affairs of others but it was exactly the sort of thing Joss would be interested in.

“His name’s Kirk. Apparently his father died while serving Starfleet and left him a heap of money. So what does he do with it? He _bought_ a house in Georgia simply because he _liked_ the taste of our _peaches.”_

Jocelyn’s tinkling laugh sounded but Leonard only offered an “mm, is that so?” in reply. She sighed heavily before moving to sit beside him.

There was no denying it: Jocelyn McCoy was beautiful, even when she was this close to him and he could see all the flaws and slight imperfections in her face. Long chestnut hair, full lips, brown come-to-bed eyes that had managed to make Leonard do exactly that more times than he could count. Damn, he was lucky.

However, she was many other things as well. She was proud and manipulative and selfish and Leonard knew more easily than he would have liked that she was cruel.

But she was his wife and unlike most people in this century, it actually meant something to him. They’d been married for ten years. They had a daughter – Joanna was seven and tucked in bed asleep. They had a _life_ together.

“The thing is, Len, most people at least feign interest and pretend to be interested as not to seem _rude_.” Her voice had taken on a slight edge now, the light and playful tone completely gone. Leonard rolled his eyes.

“The thing is, Joss, I’m not interested,” Leonard replied, closing the journal and placing it on his bedside table. He let his arms fold loosely across his chest as Jocelyn slid under the sheets beside him. He could smell the makeup remover on her face.

“For a man so high and mighty about his morals, you can be a real asshole sometimes.” Her tone was biting and Leonard could sense exactly where this conversation was going to go. He sighed. It was accelerating rather quickly.

 “Whatever you say,” he replied, seemingly passive. The reality of it was that Leonard McCoy just couldn’t be bothered getting in another damn fight with Jocelyn. He was always outclassed. Her sharp words would strip him down to nothing everytime, so there was no fucking use. “I have a long shift tomorrow, I need to get to sleep.” Jocelyn huffed and rolled onto her side, facing away from him but he just ignored her as he settled down.

Sometime during the night, they’d shifted so Jocelyn was resting in his arms, her long hair tickling his face as he woke. The curve of her ass was pressed into his crotch and she wriggled against him when she felt him wake. Maybe what they had wasn’t perfect but with her there, pressed against him, it sure felt damn good.

\--

The small town clinic Leonard ran saw an average of thirty patients a day. The injuries ranged from toothbrushes being lodged in throats, a variation of sicknesses and occasionally, a worker from the shipping yard who had a laser burn from not following the procedures.

On Wednesdays, Leonard stayed late to further research a neurology paper he was writing. He left the lights in the clinic dimmed but the door still open. Most people in the town understood that it was closed and managed to stay their injuries until the next day.

 _Most_ people.

A god-awful banging at the door made him glance up from the PADD he was studying. He stilled for a moment, hoping they’d piss off.

They didn’t.

The banging resumed, more insistently this time. Leonard cursed the fact that he left the light on out front as he stood.

“You better be bloody well dyin’,” he grouched as he moved into the front room to open the door. He hit a button and the automatic doors slid open. A man walked into the room, blinking under the harsh light.

In front of him stood Jim Kirk.

Leonard knew it must be him because he’d never seen this man before and perhaps he had succumbed to small town mentality over time because he knew _everyone_ here by face.

But Leonard couldn’t believe that _this_ was Jim Kirk. He was met with bright blue eyes and a face inked with bruises almost the same colour. Jim Kirk was barely more than a fuckin’ kid. From the stories that Jocelyn’d been telling, tales of someone who’d had enough money to simply buy a house because they liked the taste of something, Leonard had been imagining an eccentric old man.

Finally, he spoke. “Can I help you? As you can see, we’re not actually open right now.”

“I’m not sure if this constitutes as dying but it does hurt like a bitch.” His tone was mild and his accent Midwestern. He made a vague gesture at his face. Leonard noted his knuckles were bruised and red as well, dried blood decorating the prominent bones. He resisted the urge to step forward and examine them, as was second nature.

“And you expect me to patch you up?” he drawled instead, drawing his eyebrows together in disbelief.

A smile as wide as it was sudden crossed his face. “Fuck, no. I was here to see if I could borrow a regenerator. Or buy one off you or something.” He was looking around the room as he spoke, rather than at Leonard.

“Why? Does this happen a lot?” Leonard asked, the question slipping out before he could outright deny him as he’d intended to.

Jim shrugged. “A fair bit, yeah. Normally I’d just leave it but I have a job interview tomorrow and I doubt they’d hire me looking like this. So if you’d just give me one, then I wouldn’t have to bother you again.”

“It’s not happening, kid. That’s medical equipment which _I_ have been trained to use correctly and _you_ have not. I could lose my license for giving you that!”

Jim had now raised his eyebrows, amused. “Kid? I do have a name. And I have been trained to use them before... kind of. I’ve never done more damage than I initially had anyway.”

“You may have a name but you chose not to introduce yourself like a proper person when you entered the room,” Leonard replied, moving to fold his arms across his chest.

Jim stepped forward to the counter with a swagger in his step, “Figured you’d know who I was,” he said cockily as he reached out to touch something on it. Leonard reached over and swiped his hand away. “Besides, you should introduce yourself as well.”

“See, what’d I say? No manners at all. Don’t touch other people’s stuff,” he said before noticing Jim’s wince as he hit into his injured hand. It hadn’t been that hard of a swipe so his hand would have to be pretty damn sure to evoke that sort of reaction out of anyone – especially someone who was only willing to heal a face full of injuries simply for aesthetic reasons. “And my name is written on the door, which you obviously didn’t bother to read.”

Before he could move away, Leonard reached out and grabbed Jim by the wrist, examining his hand in the light. He had every mind to send him on his way but as a surgeon, Leonard knew how important hands were for anything. If he winced that easily, there might be some serious damage. Jim tugged away with surprise at first before realising what Leonard was doing.

“Doctor Leonard H. McCoy, MD, actually. Letters after the name and everything, what _a mighty fine_ achievement for someone from small town Georgia.” He pronounced ‘mighty fine’ in an exaggerated and highly inaccurate mockery of Leonard’s accent. “In any case, I’m Jim Kirk. I would shake your hand but seeing as you’ve already got it, there’s no need.”

Leonard rolled his eyes as his fingers moved up and down along Jim’s fingers. He could see the kid wincing not-so-subtly out of the corner of his eye as he felt grooves and dents in his hand where there definitely shouldn’t be.

“No, stupid is what you are. You’ve fractured at least _two_ of the metacarpal bones as well as the proximal phalanx on the third finger.” If left untreated, they’d swell and become impossible to set. “What the hell were you doing?”

He shrugged as best he could with his hand firmly in another’s grip. “Punching some stuff. Some people. A wall.” He seemed rather pleased with that last part.

Leonard almost groaned. “Stupid. Wait here,” he said, gently letting go of the hand and stalking to the back room to grab his medkit. When he returned, Jim was leaning against the counter, once again looking around the room. He set the kit on the counter and pulled out a regenerator, sterilizer and a cloth. He took the hand back and set the machine to begin to fix the bones. There were some uncomfortable sounding cracking noises, tiny little gunshots firing off within his hands as they were repaired. Jim shifted uncomfortably as the regenerator fixed the bones.

As it was working, Leonard took a moment to study the face, impartially, just as something to do. Once you got past the shock of bruises, there was actually a fairly attractive face there. On second consideration, it was more than just _fairly_ attractive. Full lips, high cheekbones and those eyes, the sort of blue that reminded Leonard of the Georgia sky on a clear day.

Leonard thought nothing of the fact that he was examining another man’s face. It was the 23rd century for God’s sake. It wasn’t as though he had any intentions, what with a wife at home asleep.  What he didn’t expect was Jim to catch him gawping at him and then _return_ the gaze with such intensity. Leonard held it for a moment before looking down to the machine.

It clicked off and he set it on the counter, moving his fingers back along the hand. He could no longer feel a groove along the inside of the third finger.

“Right, you’re all fixed. Please don’t go punching anymore walls because your interphalangeal joints will not hold up under the stress and probably shatter your metacarpals and _that_ will be a lot harder to fix than a couple of minutes with the regen,” Leonard said.

Jim chuckled. “You know a lot about bones, don’t you?”

“I’m a doctor, what do you expect?”

“Maybe for you to use layman’s terms and not through around these fancy scientific names?” Jim offered as he flexed his hand, testing it out. He curled it into a fist, clearly pleased with the result. Leonard’s frown remained firmly in place. He studied the other’s face again, looking at the blotchy blue and purple discolouring that covered one eye and a cheek. He figured it wouldn’t matter at this point if he just fixed it, he’d already been distracted from his reading. He grabbed the regenerator again, changing the settings.

“Do you really have a job interview?”

“What?” Jim looked surprised before catching what he was doing. “Oh, yeah, I do but that was just to try and get the regenerator off you. I’ll be fine,” he said with a shrug. Leonard raised a single eyebrow at him. “Okay, so maybe not _fine_ , I’ll just skip it and go in and grovel when my face looks normal.”

“Or I could just heal it now,” Leonard said in a tone that suggested Jim was a very thick, very dim-witted child. Jim hesitated for a moment before nodding jerkily. Leonard held the machine up to his face, pressing it into the injuries and his fingers brushing the skin. It must have hurt as well but Jim didn’t flinch away this time. Soon, the machine whirred off and Jim’s skin looked only just swollen, a shade pinker than normal.

He was even better looking without the bruises.

“Well. Good luck with your job interview,” Leonard said, more as a cursory gesture than actual meaning. After a moment, he added, “I was being serious about losing my license for giving you one of these,” he said, waving the regenerator. “But if you screw up your hand again or you get punched up right before you go to meet the President, you can come and grovel at me.”

Here, Leonard had to admit he had definitely succumbed to small town mentality. He’d taken Jim into the fold, looking out for him and offering him the same he did to everyone.

Jim rolled his eyes. “Gee, thanks Bones. Real kind of you there.”

Leonard startled. “ _Bones?_ ” he queried in an outraged, incredulous and pissed off tone, just _daring_ Jim to justify giving him a nickname.

Jim grinned.

“Sure. Bones,” he repeated, waving his recently fixed hand at him. “You’re a doctor, you should know what I’m talking about.”

With that, he turned and walked out of the room, leaving Leonard wondering how he’d gotten a new patient (one he assumed he'd be seeing fairly frequently) and a new nickname when all he’d wanted to do tonight was study.

\--

Despite the brief resolution he'd made to himself, it was dark outside the next day when Leonard was still typing. He leaned back to stretch, suddenly aware he’d been sitting in the same position for far too long.

Christine had left about an hour ago, picked up by some flashy out of town date in a bright red car. Leonard had waved her off from beside the printer, glaring daggers at the guy in the car, though he wasn’t sure if it would do anything. Christine could hold her own in any case.

His thoughts drifted to Joanna and he had to swallow down a wave of guilt. He knew he should be at home, he should be there for his baby girl, but it was suffocating being there a lot of the time.

He also knew this wasn’t how it was supposed to feel, to be married, and yet he couldn’t bring himself to do anything about it.

Leonard knew there would be no going back to his work after this, so he shut down his PADD and grabbed his coat before commanding the lights off. The building dipped into darkness, except for a beam of light thrown from a near streetlamp, and he stepped outside.

“There you are, Bones!”

Leonard had to stop himself from groaning aloud as he turns to the right of the practice to see one Jim Kirk leaning against a tree, no coat or jacket in sight, despite the fact it’s not the warmest Georgian night. One Jim Kirk who is giving him a grin that’s part-charming, part-devilish and Leonard wondered what he was in for.

“If you need something fixed, Jim, then it’ll have to wait until morning. I just locked the place up,” he said shortly, beginning to stride towards the main street without any pause.

Jim caught up to his pace with ease, strolling alongside him. “No, thankfully I’m intact tonight, which I’m glad of – wouldn’t want to disappoint the ladies. Or the men.” He wrinkles his eyebrows in thought for a moment. “Or the people. Should have just gone with that to start with.”

Leonard wondered if there was a point to this other than Jim letting him know he was into men. Which didn't bother him. He'd just never been inclined to swing that way himself.

“Anyway, I wanted to take you out for a drink to say thank you for fixing this,” and here he waved his hand at Leonard, “the other night. Except I probably set my expectations too high in hoping you’d be out at a decent time.”

“Probably,” Leonard growled in return. “Why didn’t you just come in and interrupt me? Seems you had no qualms doing that the other night.” He knew he was being unnecessarily curt with the other man, but his comment about Leonard not leaving until late had hit a nerve.

“Because I was trying to say _thank you_ , Bones, for services rendered, and it would have been impolite to hurry you,” Jim replied. “I thought the South was all about manners.”

“Something like that,” Leonard muttered under his breath. He stopped a moment, considering whether to cut through the shortcut to home and being rid of the incessant gnat of a man, before he thought “fuck it” and started walking towards town. Hell only knew he could do with a drink.

“Wait! Bones! Where are you going? God, could you at least _say_ something before you stride off?” Jim called after him before he heard footsteps on the road behind him picking up pace and getting closer.

“You offered me a drink. I’m headed to the bar to collect,” Leonard said, as though it was the most obvious thing in the world.

Jim opened his mouth in surprise, then closed it again, and grinned. “Okay,” he said and fell into step beside Leonard.

As is typical of small towns, everyone knew everyone, and everything was only a ten-minute walk from everything else. Leonard thanked God for that, because Jim seemed intent to give him a minute by minute explanation of his week.

“And the house – it’s beautiful, Bones, all cherry oak bannisters and white columns, a bit cold at night and obviously I know old houses aren’t the warmest places but no one told me the South got cold at night! I mean, I’m from _Iowa_ so obviously I know cold and this isn’t that, but it sure is something, have you ever been to Iowa?

Leonard ignored him and instead took the opportunity to step inside the bar when Jim finally paused for a breath.

“You must have mutant lungs, Kirk,” he said, waving in greeting at the barman. “Don’t you ever get sick of the sound of your own voice?”

“Nope,” Jim replied cheerfully. “Can we have two Budweiser’s please?” he asked, dropping some credits in front of them.

The barman, Tom, raised an eyebrow at Leonard at his company – Jim Kirk wasn’t the usual type here. Leonard gave a shrug in reply, grabbed his beer and tramped over to a corner table.

"If you're going to keep walking off with a complete disregard for whomever you're with, I'm going to have to think your momma didn't raise you right. I can't imagine that going down well with your patients." Jim slid in beside him, closer than Leonard would have liked but not close enough to justify sounding like an asshole if he asked him to move. And while he generally had no problem sounding like an asshole, he wanted to enjoy his beer.

"Given you've been one of my patients, you can answer that yourself," Leonard said evenly, taking a long sip of his drink. Jim finally did the same, settling back into his seat further.

“So, what’s a man like you doing in a place like this, anyway?” Jim asked.

Leonard scoffed. “What’s that supposed to mean?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I don't own Star Trek, nor do I make any profit.
> 
> The title of this work is taken from the song "Sinnerman" by Nina Simone.
> 
> This story is based on the headcanon "what if Jim was the one to break up Leonard and Jocelyn's marriage?"  
> Because I like Jocelyn and Leonard's various marriage dynamics. And I'm a little bit of a sucker for the pull between Leonard and Jim.
> 
> This story's set around 2254 (the year before Jim/Bones get on the shuttle together). Jocelyn and Len got married when they were 18, Joanna is now seven and Len is 27.
> 
> I'm writing this story as a sort of prequel to the 2009 film, with intentions of Leonard and Jim still meeting on that shuttle and going to space and having grand old adventures, obviously just with canon divergence prior to that.


End file.
